NEW YORK, Oct 24: Former US president Bill Clinton announced on Thursday a deal with four generic-drug companies to slash the price of AIDS drugs in parts of the developing world.

The agreement with three Indian pharmaceutical firms and a South African company will cut the price of a commonly used triple-drug regimen by almost a third, to about 38 cents a day per patient.

The same regime using patented drugs currently costs around 1.54 dollars, and 55 cents for generic drugs.

The deal was brokered by the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative which worked extensively with the four firms — Ranbaxy Laboratories, Cipla and Matrix Laboratories of India, and South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare Holdings — to find ways of bringing costs down.

“This agreement will allow the delivery of life-saving medicines to people who desperately need them,” Clinton said.

The agreement covers the delivery of the cheaper drugs to those countries where the Clinton Foundation is working with governments and organisations to set up national care, treatment and prevention programmes.

They include nine countries in the Caribbean and the African nations of Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania.

Funding for the AIDS programmes in those countries has been secured, in part, by lobbying developed nations, some of which, like Ireland and Canada, have already pledged tens of millions of dollars.

The foundation estimates that between five and six million people living with AIDS worldwide currently need treatment to save their lives, and with more than 40 million infected with HIV that number is expected to rise substantially over the next few years.—AFP